CHAPTER THREE
_In which the Little Red Chimney appears on the horizon, but withouta clue to its importance. In which also the Candy Man has a glimpse ofhigh life and is foolishly depressed by it._
Starting from the Y.M.C.A. corner, walking up the avenue a block, thenturning south, you came in a few steps to a modest grey house with agrass plat in front of it, a freshly reddened brick walk, and flowerboxes in its windows. It was modest, not merely in the sense of beingunpretentious, but also in that of a restrained propriety. You felt itto be a dwelling of character, wherein what should be done to-day, wasnever put off till to-morrow; where there was a place for everything andeverything in it. Yet mingling with this propriety was an all-pervadingcheer that appealed strongly to the homeless passerby.
The grey house presented a gable end to the street, and stretched awing comfortably on either side. In one of these was a glass door, with"Office Hours 10-1," which caused you to glance again at the sign on theiron gate: "Dr. Prudence Vandegrift."
The other ell, which was of one story, had a double window, beforewhich a rose bush grew, and when the blinds were up you had sometimes aglimpse of an opposite window, indicating that it was but one room deep.From its roof rose a small chimney that stood out from all the otherchimneys, because, while they were grey like the house and its slateroof, it was red.
Strolling by in a leisure hour the Candy Man had remarked it andwondered why, and found himself continuing to wonder. Somehow thatlittle red chimney took hold on his imagination. It was a magicalchimney, poetic, alluring, at once a cheering and a depressing littlechimney, for it stirred him to delicious dreams, which, when they faded,left him forlorn.
It was to Virginia he owed enlightenment. Virginia was the long-leggedchild who had fished Miss Bentley's bag from beneath the Candy Wagon,the indomitable leader of the Apartment House Pigeons, as the Candy Manhad named them.
The Apartment House did not exclude children, neither did it encouragethem, and when their individual quarters became too contracted tocontain their exuberance, they perforce sought the street. Like pigeonsthey would descend in a flock, here, there, everywhere; perching in ablissful row before the soda fountain in the drug store; or if the stateof the public purse did not warrant this, the curbstone and the waresof the Candy Wagon were cheerfully substituted. By virtue no doubt ofher long legs and masterful spirit, Virginia ruled the flock. Under herguidance they made existence a weariness to the several janitors onthe block.
As in defiance of law and order they circled one day on their rollerskates, down the avenue and up the broad alley behind the Y.M.C.A.,round and round, Virginia issued her orders: "You all go on, I want totalk to the Candy Man."
Being without as yet any theories, consistently democratic, she regardedhim as a friend and brother. A state of society in which the position ofCandy Man was next the throne, would have seemed perfectly logical toVirginia.
VIRGINIA]
"You don't look much like Tim," she volunteered, dangling her legs fromthe carriage block. Her hair was dark and severely bobbed; her miniaturenose was covered with freckles, and she squinted a little.
"No?" responded the Candy Man.
"Tim was Irish," she continued.
During business hours conversation of necessity took on a disjointedcharacter. Unless you had great power of concentration you forgot in theintervals what you had been talking about. When a group of High Schoolboys had been served and had gone their hilarious way Virginia beganagain. "You know the house with the Little Red Chimney?" she asked.
The Candy Man did.
"Well, a nice old man named Uncle Bob lives there, and I asked him whythat chimney was red, and he said because it was new. A branch of a treefell on the old one. The tree where the squirrel house is, you know."
The Candy Man remembered the tree.
"He said the doctor was going to have it painted, but he kind of likedit red, and so did her ladyship."
"And who might her ladyship be?" the Candy Man inquired.
"That's what I asked him, and he said, 'You come over and see,' andthen he said--now listen to this, for it's just like a story." Virginialifted an admonishing finger. "He said, whenever I saw smoke coming outof that Little Red Chimney, I might know her ladyship had come to town.You'd better believe I'm going to watch. And what do you think! I cansee it from our dining-room window!" she concluded.
"Most interesting," said the Candy Man politely, without the least ideahow interesting it really was.
Virginia's gaze suddenly fastened on a small book lying on the seat ofthe Candy Wagon, and she had seized it before its owner could protest."What a funny name," she said. "'E p i c t e t u s.' What does thatspell? And what made you cut a hole in this page? It looks like awindow."
The page was a fly leaf, from which a name, possibly that of a formerowner, had been removed. Below it the Candy Man's own name was nowwritten.
"It was so when I got it," he answered, holding out his hand for it. Hehad no mind to have his book in any other keeping, for somewhere withinits leaves lay a crimson flower.
Before she returned it Virginia examined the back. "Vol. I, what doesthat mean?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer she tossed itback to him, and ran to join the other pigeons.
From this time Virginia began to be almost as constant a visitor asthe Reporter. She had a way of bursting into conversation without anypreface whatever, speaking entirely from the fullness of her heart atthe moment.
"I'd give anything in the world to be pretty," she remarked one day,resting her school bag on the carriage block and sighing deeply.
"But now honestly," said the Candy Man, regarding her gravely, "it seemsto me you are a very nice-looking little girl, and who knows but you mayturn out a great beauty some day? That is the way it happens in storybooks."
Virginia returned his gaze steadily. "Do you really think there is anychance? You are not laughing?"
He assured her he was intensely serious.
"Well, you are the first person who ever told me that. Uncle Harry said,'Is it possible, Cornelia, that this is your child?' Cornelia is mymother, and she is a beauty. My brother is awfully good looking, too.Everybody thinks he ought to have been the girl. I'll tell you who Iwant to look like when I grow up. Don't you know that young lady whofell in the mud?"
Oh, yes, the Candy Man knew, and applauded Virginia's ambition. He wouldhave been pleased to enlarge on the subject, even to the extent ofneglecting business, but just as she began to be interesting Virginiaremembered an errand to the drug store, and ran away.
That Sunday morning meeting with Miss Bentley had been reviewed by theCandy Man from every possible standpoint, and always, in conclusion,with the same questions. Could he have done otherwise? What would shethink when she discovered her mistake? Who was his unknown double?
The opportunity offering, he made some guarded inquiries of theReporter.
"Bentley?" repeated that gentleman, as he sharpened a bright yellowpencil. "Seem to have heard the name somewhere recently."
It was a matter of no particular importance to the Candy Man. He hadchanced to hear the name given to the conductor by the young lady whowas thrown down the night of the accident, and wondered----
The Reporter, who wasn't listening, here exclaimed: "I have it! It wasthis A.M. Maimie McHugh was interviewing Mrs. Gerrard Pennington overthe office 'phone in regard to a luncheon she is giving this week inhonour of her niece. Said niece's name me-thinks was Bentley. You willsee it all in the social notes later. Covers for twelve, decorations inpink, La France roses, place cards from somewhere." He paused to laugh."Maimie was doing it up brown, but she lacks tact. What does she do butask for Miss Bentley's picture for the Saturday edition! I tried to stopher, but it was too late. You should have heard the 'phone buzz. 'Myniece's picture in the _Evening Record_!' 'I don't care, mean oldthing,' says Maimie, when she hung up. 'Nicer people than she is do it,and are glad to. 'That's all right, my honey,' I told her, 'but thereare nice pe
ople and nice people, and it's up to you to know the varietyyou are dealing with, unless you like to be snubbed.' Still," theReporter added reflectively, "Mrs. Gerrard Pennington and little McHughcan't afford to quarrel. After the luncheon Mrs. G.P. will probably sendMaimie a pair of long white gloves, and when their pristine freshnesshas departed, Maimie will wear them to the office a time or two."
The Candy Man wished to know who Mrs. Gerrard Pennington was, anyway.
"She, my ignorant friend, is a four-ply Colonial Dame, so to speak.Distinguished grandfathers to burn, and the dough to support them,unlike another friend of mine who possessed every qualification neededto become a C.D. except on the clothes line."
"The joke," observed the Candy Man, "is old, but worth repeating. But didI understand you to say _another_ friend? And am I to infer----?"
"You are far too keen for a Candy Man," said the Reporter, laughing."Mrs. G.P. is friendly with the wealthy branch of our family. Sheregards my Cousin Augustus as a son. Now I think of it, your MissBentley cannot be her niece. She could scarcely fall out of a streetcar. A victoria or a limousine would be necessary in her case."
The Candy Man did not see his way clear to disclaim proprietorship inMiss Bentley, so let it pass. Certainly, on other grounds his MissBentley, to call her so, could not be Mrs. Gerrard Pennington's niece.Not that she lacked the charm to grace any position however high, buther simplicity and friendliness, the fact that she walked in the countrywith a stoutish relative who was intimate with the family of the parksuperintendent, the marketing he had witnessed, all went to prove hispoint.
Yet on the occasion of a fashionable noon wedding at the stone churchnear the Y.M.C.A. corner, all this impressive evidence was brought tonaught. In the crush of machines and carriages the Candy Wagon was allbut engulfed in high life. When the crowd surged out after the bridalparty, the congestion for a few minutes baffled the efforts of the corpsof police.
The Candy Man, looking on with much amusement at the well-dressedthrong, presently received a thrill at the sound of a clear young voiceexclaiming, "Here is the car, Aunt Eleanor--over here."
The haughtiest of limousines had taken up its station just beyond theCandy Wagon, and toward this the owner of the voice was piloting amajestic and breathless personage. If the Candy Man could have doubtedhis ears, he could not doubt his eyes. Here was the grace, the sparkle,the everything that made her his Miss Bentley, the Girl of AllOthers--except the grey suit. Now she wore velvet, and wonderful whiteplumes framed her face and touched her bright hair. No, there was nomistaking her. Reviewing the evidence he found it baffling. That absurdexclamation about lighthouses alone might be taken as indicating anunfamiliarity with the humbler walks of life.
The Reporter was at this time in daily attendance upon a convention inprogress in a neighbouring hall, and he rarely failed to stop at thecarriage block and pass the time of day on his way to and fro.
"Ah ha!" he exclaimed, on one of these occasions, after perusing insilence the first edition of the _Evening Record_; "I see my CousinAugustus, on his return from New York, is to give a dinner dance inhonour of Mrs. Gerrard Pennington's niece."
"I appreciate your innocent pride in Cousin Augustus, but may I inquireif by chance he possesses another name?" The Candy Man spoke withuncalled-for asperity.
"Sure," responded the Reporter, with a quizzical glance at hisquestioner; "several of 'em. Augustus Vincent McAllister is what hecalls himself every day."
The Little Red Chimney: Being the Love Story of a Candy Man Page 4